Do You Trust The Lord?

If you don’t know, I am Pastor David. If you’re new here, my name is Pastor David. I am the youth pastor here at Chapel Valley. Last week and the week before, we had Pastor Suzie preach, and this week and next week I’m going to be up here. So if this is your first time here, welcome. It’s going to be me next week as well.

Following Jesus costs something

Last week Suzie spoke on a message titled “Why Jesus.” Everybody say, “Why Jesus.” There’s a lot to cover in that message, but the thing to remember from it, which we’re carrying over this week especially, is that when you follow Jesus, it’s going to cost you something, right? Do you guys agree with that? When you follow Jesus, it’s going to cost you something. It can cost you things like your reputation. It can cost you your free time, your friends, even your family. These are all things that it can cost you.

And so when you first bring it up, it can be kind of scary. But I’ve actually met some people — mostly youth students, if I think about it — that have said things like, “You know, I follow Jesus. I don’t really feel like it costs me too much. I kind of just go to church on Sunday when I want to, and then I go throughout my week however I want to. I pray here and there. I read my Bible. I don’t think it’s really costing me too much.”

And to those people I would just say, I would encourage you to consider that you have not yet experienced the best that God has for you, if you feel like it’s not costing you anything to follow Jesus. Because the truth is, I believe that we serve a jealous God, right? Which means He wants your time. He wants your attention. He wants your devotion. He wants your worship, because He deserves it. And in return, when we give that to Him, we are walking out our identity in Christ. Amen. And we get to experience life to the fullest in that regard.

I remember talking to a youth student who was about to graduate and was trying to figure out what they were going to do with their life moving forward — if they wanted to go to college, what kind of career path they wanted to go on, and so on. And when I talked to them, I realized they were talking about the next season of life, and they didn’t have God anywhere in those plans. I wasn’t trying to encourage them to go into ministry or become a pastor or anything. I was just asking simple questions, like, “Have you thought about what you’re going to do on Sundays? Are you still going to keep going to church? Are you still going to get into your Bible, with all the time you’re going to have to sink into studying and your social life? Where does God fit into all of this?”

And they told me, “Well, I just want to be a normal Christian.” And I’m like, “Well, what does that mean?” Especially nowadays, what in the world does a normal Christian look like? And they’re like, “You know, just things like I go to church sometimes when I want to, or like Easter and Christmas, probably. I’ll pray. If you were to ask me if I believed in God, I would say yes. But that’s kind of as far as I want to go.”

And how many of you know that Jesus wants us to be either all in or all out? Do you guys know that? We read in Revelation 3 that He told the angel to write to the church of Laodicea that you are neither hot nor cold, you’re lukewarm, and therefore “I spit you out of My mouth.” It is a rejection at that point to be lukewarm. Either you’re all in or you’re all out. That’s why, two weeks ago, Pastor Suzie preached “You Can’t Just Try Jesus.” He’s not like what I like to do, where I sign up for a bunch of free trials and then cancel at the last minute. He’s not like that, okay? You’re either all in or you’re all out. You can’t just try Jesus.

So that’s a really quick recap of everything we’ve been going through recently. But this week I am speaking, and for those of you that might not know, whenever I speak, I always start off the exact same way: praying to the Lord and asking Him, “What is it that You want me to speak on this Sunday? What is it that You want me to be focusing on this upcoming week?” And so I had done that and didn’t really get an answer. And then at 3:00 in the morning I woke up, couldn’t fall back asleep, and distinctly heard the Lord say, “Do you trust the Lord?” So that’s the title of our message. Our message today is “Do You Trust the Lord?”

Now, as soon as you say that, you might be thinking, “I know where this message is going. I’m going to feel guilty,” or, “This is going to be like a charge against me: do you really trust the Lord?” There might be a little bit of that, but I would encourage you to just stay tuned in. This is actually a really good message that focuses on all the different dynamics in our lives that we all deal with. Nobody is excluded from the things that we’re talking about today.

So the title of the message today is “Do You Trust the Lord?” Now, that’s a really generic, broad statement, I feel like. But you can break it down into the specifics of everything that we deal with in daily life. Do you trust the Lord with your finances? Do you trust the Lord with your time? Do you trust the Lord with your healing? Do you trust the Lord with your heart? There are tons of different areas.

And I would say, myself included, that I can walk around and say, “I trust the Lord with my time,” but maybe I don’t trust Him with my finances. Maybe He feels like I’m supposed to be giving a specific gift or an offering to Him or to a certain ministry, and I’m just like, “Not right now, Lord. My air conditioner just broke. We’re paying that off.” Which is actually a true statement. I had no idea how expensive AC units were until ours broke, and I was like, “This is the worst.” And so depending on the pressure that comes onto our lives, it can be a different answer in the different areas, whether we trust the Lord, whether we’re all in or all out. That’s a real thing.

Trusting what we’re familiar with

So do you trust the Lord with your finances, your time, your healing, your heart? There are so many different areas where we can trust Him. If we’re not trusting the Lord, though, I would challenge you to think that means we are putting our trust in something else. That means we’re putting our trust in things that we may not even consider to be bad things. It can look like putting more trust in things like our career or our government or our friends or our family or doctors. I’m not saying don’t go to the doctor. I’m just saying that when you aren’t trusting the Lord, you can put more trust in earthly things.

And I think the reason we do that, subconsciously, is because we are familiar with them. I’m familiar with my friends. I’m familiar with my family. I know exactly how they act. I know the things they’re going to tell me. I know their strengths. I know their weaknesses. I’m familiar with my job. I know exactly what’s coming when it comes to a certain paycheck. I can make plans around it. I can budget around it. I’m not that familiar with my doctor, but I kind of know, when I go, the kind of things that might happen. He’s probably going to prescribe me something. And so there are things I’m familiar with, and therefore I feel more comfortable putting my trust in them.

And when it comes to the Lord, I think sometimes we can get off track and feel like we don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen if we put our trust in Him. We don’t know what’s going to happen with this health problem that’s been bothering us forever, that we’ve prayed about, where we feel like He said we are going to be healed, but it hasn’t manifested yet. We don’t know what that’s going to look like or when that time is going to come. We could be in a financial situation where we need provision, and the Lord’s saying, “I have you. I’m providing for you. You just need to trust in Me.” And we don’t know what that’s going to look like. We don’t know if He’s just going to send magical money out of nowhere. We don’t know if a check’s coming in the mail. We don’t know what it will look like, because we’re unfamiliar with His ways sometimes.

And so I bring that up to say, if you feel like you’re in a place where you’re not sure if you trust the Lord in A, B, C, D — your finances, your health — I would encourage you to challenge yourself and realize that it may be because you’re putting your trust in something else that you’re familiar with and know, rather than the Lord.

And the exciting part about that is we can actually become extremely familiar with the Lord. We can know the Lord. We can know His ways. And so when it comes to Him asking for our trust in things like our finances, our health, fill in the blank, we can be in a spot where we know His heart, and we know Him so well, and we’re in His Word, where we actually are familiar with it, and therefore trusting Him is ten times easier. Does that make sense? It’s almost like a math equation — and I hate math, so I hope I actually did a good job explaining that. We can know the Lord and trust in His ways more than what we deal with in our everyday life.

Guarding the heart

Now, I am eventually going to use this Bible, which I’ll get to, but if you have your Bibles, you can turn with me to Jeremiah 17:9 if you want. This is going to be extremely quick. Jeremiah 17:9 says this: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

So when we look at the Bible, I consider this to be truth. And when we learn the truth that the heart is deceitful above all things and that nobody can understand it, it can be challenging to consider the fact that we’re asked to trust the Lord with our heart, right? We are asked to trust the Lord with our heart, and then His Word tells us that our heart can be deceived, that it can be deceitful. So how is it that we’re asked to trust Him with something that can be deceived?

Well, the answer is actually found in Proverbs 4:23–27, which will be on the screen. In the ESV it says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.”

Now, I bring this up to say that in my time of getting closer to the Lord — I’ve shared this testimony before — I was challenged by Pastor Suzie, actually, to consider the things that were influencing or going into my heart at a specific time. Your heart is influenced by the things that you take in, the things that you watch, the things that you listen to. It can be as simple as movies and music, or it can be as complex as the people that you’re listening to and the influences in your life. Those are all things that can influence your heart. That’s why His Word tells us that our heart can actually be deceived, depending on what goes into it. And then, just as we read in Proverbs, we find out that from our heart flow the springs of life.

Now, this isn’t going to be up here, but the NIV says it in a way that I really like. So listen to this. This is again Proverbs 4:23–27 in the NIV: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” And then it capitalizes on the ways that you can guard your heart: “Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.”

These are ways that we actually guard our hearts. And this makes sense, because His Word tells us that we can experience peace from God, and it says that the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. So that means when we are actually conscious of what’s going into our hearts, and we are guarding our hearts from those things, the peace of God — that nobody really fully understands, but is available for us — will protect our hearts, guard our hearts. And then with that protected, guarded heart, we are asked to trust in Jesus.

Circling back, we are asked to trust in the Lord with our hearts. Proverbs 3:1–5 says, “My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.” So if you read that from the beginning: “Do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments.” It says if you do that — as a promise — it is not a temporary thing or a season where you get to just experience His peace and love. It says, “for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.” What will add to you? His commandments that you’re keeping in your heart. Do you see now why it’s so important to be guarding your hearts and minds? It is extremely important to be guarding your hearts, because then it is so much easier to put your trust in Him with your heart.

Romans 15:13 — I know we’re doing a lightning round of Scripture, but just stay with me. Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

I think what I like the most when I read this is that it tells us what’s going to happen in the process of us trusting Him. It says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace.” Who wants to be filled with all joy and all peace? I think every person in here should want to be filled with all joy and all peace. You will be filled with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That means all of those things that we started this message with — when we’re walking through different seasons and obstacles in our life, wanting to trust our finances more, or our education more, our government more, our friends more, our family more, whatever it may be — we are actually asked to trust in the Lord instead. And when we do that, we are filled with all joy and all peace.

It’s scary to think about that, because I think sometimes we’ve tried to trust in the Lord temporarily, or for a little bit, in our own ways — it’s going to happen the way we have it in our head. And then when that doesn’t happen, it almost feels like this scripture is a lie. And it comes into full fruition that He is actually asking you to continue to step out in faith and trust Him even when your circumstances and what you’re seeing aren’t panning out. That makes sense, right?

So these questions — do you trust the Lord with your finances, your time, your healing, your heart, et cetera — really all come down to what I believe is the question: do you trust the Lord for who He says He is? And if you don’t know who He says He is, that requires us to be in a place where we are familiar with Him. That requires us to spend our time doing things like we’re doing right now: worshiping Him, getting to know His Word, getting in His Word, spending time in prayer. It requires us to know Him a little bit deeper.

“I don’t know — I’m trusting”

I have a few friends that are skeptical about the Lord. Some of my closest friends are definitely here at church with me, and they’re Christians, but I also have a lot of close friends that don’t know the Lord at all. They know I’m a pastor. They know I believe in God. And they’re definitely the ones that are the most skeptical about it. They’ll say things like, “Well, how do you know that God is real?”

I was going through a time where I needed healing for something, and my friend was like, “Just go to the doctor and get this medication. It’ll work.” And I’m like, “I prayed about it specifically and was told not to go.” I’m not one of those people that avoids the doctor, but if the Lord tells me to do something instead, I’m going to do that instead. So I was like, “No, I prayed about it. I know healing is coming.” And he’s like, “Well, how do you know that’s coming? How do you know you’re going to get healed? How do you know the Lord is going to come through?”

And I think my favorite thing was — there are times in my life where I feel I need to know everything when it comes to the Bible or education in order to debate or challenge people. And then there are times when I realize the actual truth, that the Holy Spirit can guide my tongue and my words in those moments, and it’s for the better. And when he asked that question, “How do you know this is going to happen?” I distinctly remember it just popped into my head from the Holy Spirit. I was just like, “I don’t know. I’m trusting that it’s going to happen.”

He’s not asking me to know for sure that it’s going to happen. He’s asking me to have faith in what He said is going to happen. Does that make sense? That makes a difference too. He’s asking us to trust and have faith in the things that He said are going to happen. Because the best part about it is, when that happens, we get to say, “I don’t know how it happened. I just know that God made it happen.” All the glory goes to Him. None of it is on us. And it actually makes room for us to only be able to give credit to the Lord. I think it’s a beautiful thing. I really do.

Now, when I have faith that He’s going to do what He says He will, it can set the stage for Jesus to come through and for His name to be glorified. I’m going to say that again, because we’re going to read a part of Scripture where this happens. When I have faith that the Lord is going to do what He says He’s going to do, it sets the stage for Him to be glorified. Does that make sense? We see it happen in His Word.

The centurion who trusted Jesus’ word

So this is where I would encourage you to turn right now. We’re going to be jumping a little bit, but we’re going to stay in Matthew. And I’m smirking and laughing because I am currently pulling my brand new Bible out of its box. I’ve had this Bible for maybe five days. And Pastor Jay got a Bible recently, maybe a couple months ago, and he’s been carrying it around in its box. And I would always make fun of him for it. “Why do you still have the box? You have the Bible. It’s all good.” He’s like, “I don’t want it to get ruined in my backpack.” I’m like, “Ruined in your backpack? It’s a book. Just put it in there. It’s going to be okay.” And for the last four days, I have refused to throw this box out, because I realize how nice my Bible has stayed since I got it and kept it in the box. So I have my Bible up here, and I have my box up here.

If you have your Bible, please turn with me to Matthew 4. We’re starting in Matthew 4, verse 23. This is right before the Sermon on the Mount, finishing up the chapter of Matthew 4, and I want you to realize what it says. This is shortly after Jesus is starting His ministry. If you don’t know, Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, and after He went through that, stayed on the Word, and stayed strong, His ministry started. This is shortly after that.

We read in Matthew 4, starting at verse 23: “And He went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So His fame spread throughout all Syria” — everybody say “fame” — “and they brought Him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and He healed them. And great crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis” — I can never say this; Decapolis, thank you — “and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.”

So I pause and include this as context because Jesus was not doing ministry in secret. When He was teaching and going around and miracles were happening, word got around, okay? Shortly after this, the Sermon on the Mount happens. We don’t have time to cover it all, but we actually had a series where we went through the Beatitudes, which are covered in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 7:28–29, shortly after He’s done with the Sermon on the Mount, says, “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one who had authority” — everybody say “authority” — “and not as their scribes.” So they recognized that this was not just some crazy person that happened to be good at teaching. They recognized this was a teacher different from what they had seen previously. So Jesus is recognized. He’s given the Sermon on the Mount. People know Him. They recognize that He’s doing these things. He’s recognized as a teacher with authority.

And then comes the part that we are focusing on: Matthew 8:5–13. “When He had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to Him, appealing to Him, ‘Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.’ And He said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ But the centurion replied, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have You come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority’” — everybody say “authority” — “‘with soldiers under me. And I say to one, “Go,” and he goes, and to another, “Come,” and he comes, and to my servant, “Do this,” and he does it.’”

So the centurion just asked Jesus — the one whose fame has been spreading, who’s recognized as a teacher with authority — “I have a servant lying at home who is paralyzed. He needs healing.” And Jesus actually responds in that moment, “I’m going to come and heal him. I will go with you.” And the centurion tells Him, “No, only Your word is good enough. Just say the word, and he’ll be healed.”

And so this is Jesus’ response to him, verse 10: “When Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who followed Him, ‘Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed at that very moment.”

Everybody say, “At that very moment.” The centurion believed, and it says the servant was healed at that very moment. It doesn’t say that when the centurion got back he witnessed this and then came back and told Jesus he was astonished. It doesn’t say that any kind of time had passed. It says, “in that very moment.” Why? I believe it’s because the centurion showed faith that Jesus was who He said He was and was going to do the things He said He would do. He said, “I will heal him,” and He did.

As I said before, when we believe that Jesus is who He says He is, when we believe that Jesus is going to do what He says He’s going to do, it sets the stage for Jesus to be able to glorify Himself. I don’t know about you guys, but I want Jesus to be able to glorify Himself in my life in multiple aspects. I want to be able to see Jesus move not just on a Sunday morning, but in the middle of my work shift, when I’m talking to one of my co-workers and something in real life comes up — they’re like, “It’s been a really hard week. I’m going through this, this, this” — I want to be able to pray for them and have a miracle happen. Those are the kinds of things that I want to happen. In order for that to happen, I need to believe that Jesus will do what He says He will, and I need to be able to trust the Lord. Amen. We need to be able to trust the Lord with our hearts.

The iPod testimony

I have this written down — literally, in my notes it just says “iPod testimony,” so now I have to share this. This was a time when my faith was challenged, and honestly it meant a lot to me. When I was 18, maybe 19, I was in our internship for ministry. And it’s funny, because that doesn’t feel that long ago to me, but I had a cell phone and I had an iPod, and I carried both of them around in my pockets. That tells me it is a long time ago. For those who don’t know, there was a time when you needed both an MP3 player and a cell phone if you wanted to listen to music constantly. I didn’t have the luxury of loading it all onto my phone. So I would carry around my iPod and my phone every single day.

In this internship, we ended up going to a ministry-type conference in Michigan. And for those who don’t know me well, I am notorious for losing things. I lose things all the time. I’ve gotten better, but it still happens. Back then I was very bad. So when we got back from Michigan, I had lost my iPod, and I immediately was like, “Yep, it’s gone. I know it’s gone. It’s done. Now I’ve got to save up for a new one.” I was an intern that only worked 15 hours a week, so I wasn’t making much money at the time. I didn’t want to spend whatever it was then — $300 for an iPod, I don’t know. So I was a little bit discouraged.

And I remember telling my senior pastor at the time, in our office, “Yeah, I lost my iPod.” And he was like, “Well, just pray about it, and it’ll come back.” And I was like, “No, it’s gone.” I didn’t even entertain the idea. In my ministry internship, to my senior pastor, I was like, “No, I’m not going to pray about it. It’s gone.” And he was like, “I would encourage you to do it. You never know. It could come back to you.” And I was explaining it away, telling him, “God doesn’t care about my iPod. He probably wants me to spend money on something else. Whatever, it’s gone. Just don’t worry about it.”

So I didn’t. And then I went on about my life for, I think, six months, seven months, something like that. Still no iPod. And then I remember a sermon we listened to in our internship that was challenging faith and challenging repentance. It was encouraging us to repent of times that we didn’t believe in His faithfulness to us. And I was like, “Great, that’s exactly what I’m going through. That’s definitely for me.” So I decided, okay, I’m going to do this. And I actually prayed and said, “Lord, I know that You are provider. I know You wanted me to pray about this, and I specifically didn’t.” And so I repented that I didn’t trust in His faithfulness. I confessed it and repented.

Within that week, I got a message on Facebook from somebody that went to the church where the conference was, and he messaged me and said, “Hey, is this yours?” And I was like, “Yeah, that’s my iPod. How did you know it was mine?” He was a kid at a summer camp, about the same age as me. He remembered I was into death metal at the time, and he goes, “I was looking through it, and there were a bunch of death metal bands, and there’s no one that goes to my church that listens to death metal, so I figured it was yours.” I was like, “That was good detective work. I’m proud of you.” He knew it was mine simply from the bands and the artists that were on the iPod.

And so I tell that story to say: I repented. I told the Lord I was sorry that I wasn’t believing in His faithfulness. And shortly after that, He was able to step in, now that the stage was set, and glorify Himself in my life. Because now when I tell that story, I can tell people, “It would not have happened if I hadn’t prayed about it.” Six, seven months went by, and then I prayed and repented of the times I didn’t believe He was faithful, and within that week I got back one of my possessions that I had refused to pray about. You can’t tell me that’s just a coincidence. That was a really, really small thing in my life where God got to show Himself really big. Does that make sense? And so if He’s able to do it there, it sets the stage for me to be able to trust in Him for the really big things. You’re with me, right?

A child’s simple faith

There’s another time when I think I saw God heal. It’s not the most miraculous thing, but I think I saw the most pure form of somebody just believing that somebody could be healed, and then it happened. So it was kind of a pure-faith moment. This was when we were going to winter camp, and I think I was still in my internship. A lot of crazy things happened when I was an intern, I’m realizing.

We were getting ready to go, and Pastor Jay had asked me to show up early at his house. I got there, and we were drinking coffee. And Pastor Jay’s son — he’s here today; I’m telling a story about you, I’m sorry — was much smaller than he is now. I don’t recall exactly how old he was, but I do know he was a toddler. I was in the living room playing with him with a ball or something. He probably wouldn’t do that with me now — actually, we would probably have a lot of fun — but that was entertaining enough for him. Jay said he just had to shave and brush his teeth quick, and then we could leave and get on the road.

So I’m playing with him in the living room, and I wasn’t even old at the time, but I got hurt. I was sitting on the ground, and when I went to get up, I put my arm back to push myself off of a chair, and there was no chair there. So I leaned back and just fell. I can’t remember how I landed, but my knee bent the way it’s not supposed to bend. It bent out, and it hurt so bad. And I’m sitting there holding my knee, and the little guy is just running around playing with the ball. Doesn’t care.

And then Jay comes down — intern boss Jay at the time — and he’s like, “All right, let’s go. I’m ready.” And I was like, “Jay, I just hurt my knee. It’s a long story. I just need a second. I’ve got to figure this out.” I couldn’t walk on it. It really hurt. So then Pastor Jay was like, “All right, let’s pray for healing, then.” And I remember he looked at his son and said, “Come on, we’re going to pray for David’s knee.” And his son ran over and put both of his hands on my knee. He was so small at the time that both of his hands fit on my knee.

And I remember we prayed a really simple prayer, and then my knee just went numb. I couldn’t feel any pain. I couldn’t feel anything in it. It just went numb. I was like, “This is good enough to walk on. Let’s go.” So we got in the car, and it was numb for the entire four-hour car ride. And by the time we got there and I got out, my knee felt completely fine. And so that was a time when I recognized that people hadn’t had a moment or a shard of doubt in their mind that God was going to heal in that moment.

Now, I spoke about this the last time I was up here, but I truly believe that it’s important for us to know God and be familiar with Him, not just because we are supposed to trust in Him, but because when it comes to praying for the things in our life, we are to pray according to His will. Everybody say, “According to God’s will.” Okay, good, you’re with me. It’s important to know that, because we don’t treat God like a genie in a bottle that just grants whatever wish or prayer we have, right? He answers our prayers according to His will.

And the beautiful thing about that is, both of these stories are honestly pretty minor, but both of them are moments of realizing that He is an intimate Father who cares for us. It doesn’t matter if I own an iPod or not. God probably doesn’t care that I own an iPod or if I lost it. But He does care that I know that He is a good Father. And so Him doing something that small can completely change the dynamic and my perception of who He is in my life. I didn’t tear my ACL or anything crazy like that. He probably didn’t care, in the moment, if I just slightly hurt my knee and we were about to go on a car ride. But He did care that I knew He was my healer. You see the difference there?

And so I encourage you: if you’re not sure if you know the Lord, or if you’re not sure if you trust the Lord in whatever aspect of your life, He has more and more to show you. He has more to show you, to the point where you have not yet experienced the best that God has for you in your life. You have not yet experienced God being that provider for you, that healer. Maybe you have to a certain extent. But I truly believe that if you’re not sure if you trust the Lord with things, if you’re not sure if it’s really costing you anything right now to follow the Lord, the encouragement is that you have more of the best life that God can provide for you to experience by trusting in Him. You guys are with me, right? That makes sense? Okay, good.

All right. Well, I actually am at the end of my message. I preach next week, and for those who don’t know, I am very used to going way over, so I’m putting a pause here before we move on to next week’s message. But it does have to do with trusting in the Lord. And today I do still want to pray for you guys.

Responding in trust

As pastors on staff, something we’ve been meeting about and praying about is that we would have more opportunity for ministry time — that we would have more opportunity for the Lord to do what He wants to do within our services. Not outside of it, not planning an outreach event where it specifically can happen, but in every aspect of when we gather together. That we’re gathering together because the Lord is there, and we’re not just sitting in His presence waiting for something to happen; we are actively participating in it.

And so I would encourage you, this is a perfect time for that. It’s not football season yet; nobody should be rushing out. We’re ending earlier than we normally do. We’re going to enter into a closing time of worship, and I would encourage you to sit in this time and hear from the Lord. And while that’s happening, we are going to have people up here available to pray for you.

And one question — not guilt, not condemning, nothing like that — is, “Do you trust the Lord?” If there’s any aspect of your life where you don’t trust Him, whether that’s your finances, your healing, whatever it may be, I would encourage you to come up for prayer. And what we’ll do is pray that the Lord would show Himself in a new way to you. We’ll pray that the Lord would be faithful in that specific area of your life where you feel you’re not trusting Him. Can we do that?

So let’s stand together. We’re going to start with prayer, and then we’ll open up a time where you can come forward. I’m going to pray for us quickly, we’ll enter into this time of worship, and then I’ll encourage you to come up if you need prayer.

Father God, I thank You that You are faithful above all else. Lord, You are faithful. You’re the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. God, I thank You for that. I had a revelation of that scripture the first time I ever read it, Lord, because the same God that I read about in the Word, who does these miraculous miracles — all these crazy stories we hear in kids’ church that we just can’t even fathom happening sometimes — that same God is the same God that we worship and talk to right now. You are the same God yesterday, today, and forevermore.

And so in every aspect of our life where we feel there’s an obstacle that we can’t get over, we need You in it, Lord. It’s nothing to You. It’s not intimidating at all to You. You want to be that good Father that steps in in the small times, like losing something as trivial as an iPod, but also steps in in the big areas, where we feel like we are at rock bottom or lost without You. That You would come in in that moment.

But Lord, in order for that to happen, we know that we need to trust You. And so Lord, we are standing here as a people opening up our hearts to You, where we may have put up walls or guards before, and we just say that we trust You, Lord. Lord, we’re trusting You with our time right now, our attention, and our hearts. So God, I pray that You would just speak to us in this moment. Lord, You know how we hear best. You know the best way to speak to us. And I pray that for each and every person in the room, since You are a personal, intimate God and a loving Father — God, we open up this time for You to be exactly that for us. But God, we just want to start by worshiping You first. And so Lord, I pray You would take hold of this moment as we lift up our song of praise to You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Transcribed from the message recording and lightly edited for reading.